Tag Archives for isolation

Recently, I have been stuck in a pattern that I dislike: longing for intimacy, but being terrified of vulnerability. For me, there are two types of vulnerability: one type I bring into a small group; the second I bring to one-on-one relationship. In close personal relationship I am far more guarded. I am comfortable in group, but in one on one relationships, I retreat because the risk is so much greater. Vulnerability with those I’m closest with requires honesty and truth about what I am longing for and what my weaknesses are; it is here that I am most afraid. In truth, I am fully aware that you can use my vulnerability against me and choose to reject me.

Rejection would really hurt so I remain guarded, distant, disconnected, no intimacy in close relationships, and I remain lonely.

What I have come to realize is that I fiercely cling to what I know. Even though I may be suffering by clinging to dysfunction, I don’t do anything to change it. Instead, I continue to do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. I fear confronting a reality that I find unacceptable. But I accept it fearing that I will just make it worse if I try to change it.

This pattern becomes dangerous because I isolate and withdraw, then use some type of escape to fill the void, perpetuating resentment and self-pity. This pattern continues repeating with some small periods of relief like vacations or trips–but at the heart of it is loneliness. I stop trying to connect.

Brené Brown says, “Those who are vulnerable and risk pain and suffering from vulnerability live whole-heartedly; imperfect and wired for struggle, but worthy of love and belonging.”[1]

What I am learning in this struggle is people deserve to know the truth. Yes, there is risk and potential suffering from sharing the truth, but it is the only path to being truly known. Isolation is the fertile soil of making bad choices to alleviate the pain. I can choose to suffer in isolation and silence withholding my truth from people, knowing that it will never bear fruit other than loneliness, or I can choose to suffer in the power of being known.

The very thing I run from is the very thing I long for.

The only way I am going to grow and enter into the sacred place of intimacy is to risk truth in vulnerability. So I have decided that I am not going to suffer in isolation anymore, because vulnerability is the only path that leads to connection with others and ultimately myself.

[1] Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

I was in group the other day, we were talking about struggles with anxiety and stress. I shared that the reality about my anxiety is that it stems from areas of my life that I am trying to “control” and I can’t. In my fear I turn to obsessing and worrying about the uncontrollable and it creates a lot of anxiety in my life.

That is why admitting my powerlessness is so foundational to me being free.

Recently, I have become more and more aware of my physical diminishment as I turn 60. This is about the age my Dad was when he got diagnosed with cancer. So now a stomachache makes me question, could that be cancer? I’m the age he was when he was diagnosed—am I next? I start to become anxious about something I have absolutely no control over. I can’t control cancer, or getting older, and the inevitably that someday I will get sick, and I will die, and there isn’t anything I can do about that. I truly am powerless over getting older and what will come as I age.

If I let worry take over I become resentful with the realities of life, and eventually depression creeps up to stop me from obsessing. I have always heard that if you are surrendering to self-pity or resentment, you are headed toward isolation—I really relate to that.

A good friend of mine who participates in AA gave me a surprising solution to my worry. He said that a heart of gratitude is the perfect antidote for the anxiety that we feel when we cannot control things. I can already hear your comments…Gratitude? That’s the big solution? But this gratitude always comes through the attitude of acceptance.

“Whenever I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation-some fact of my life-unacceptable to me, and I find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.”[i]

Interesting concept isn’t it? Learning to be grateful for whatever is going on in my life at this moment, because I know it’s a part of God’s plan and there is something good that is going to grow out of it. Only then can I become grateful for the growth of my character through the most unacceptable of circumstances.

Too often, our gratitude is contingent on our lives going the way we want.

Folks, God just doesn’t working that way.

Paul asked God three times to remove his thorn and God said nope, I’m not going to do it because, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”[ii] In other words, God is saying, “Paul, be grateful for where you are and what it is that you are dealing with because I have a plan for it. I am taking care of it.”

Be grateful my friends and accept life for what it is today knowing that our hope is growing on the ground that we are standing.